Philosophies, traditional pedagogy, and new technologies: a report on a case study of EAP teachers' integration of technology into traditional practice

This chapter reports on a study of teachers in transition, developing their practice and their cognitions regarding the integration of learning technologies with traditional approaches to the teaching of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Taking a case study approach, it examines developments in the practice of three teachers during and after a teacher education programme on the use of technology in the EAP classroom. This is a study of cognition, teaching philosophy, and the relationship between pedagogy, technology, and content, and how teachers situate these within their own practice. The setting is the rapidly changing UK higher education environment, where the speed of change is such that today's latest fashions and gadgets may well be yesterday's news tomorrow. Thus, this is not a tale of individual technologies or tools to make teachers' lives better. This is a story of people, of pedagogy's traditional values intersecting with technology, and the issues arising from this, alongside the evolution of strategies for dealing with these issues.

Introducing Intercultural Communication into the Teaching of Translation

This article examines how the teaching of translation at university level can come to include the systematic development of intercultural skills. It will do this initially by presenting the methodology and outcomes of a European Union funded project entitled ‘Promoting Intercultural Competence in Translators’. The precise aims, context, participants, timing and working methodology of the project will be clearly outlined. This will be followed by an explanation of key theoretical principles which underlay the project and which were embodied in a ‘good practice guide’ at its conclusion. The project produced three key outputs freely available on the project website aimed to help university lecturers in Translation to enhance the development of students’ intercultural skills – a ‘curriculum framework’ (syllabus), teaching materials and assessment materials, for each of which the theoretical/pedagogical underpinning will be explained and examples provided. The article will conclude with an extended reflective section examining some of the limits of the project, areas in which it could be further developed or adapted to context, finishing with an indication of areas in which further research is needed.

Reflections Upon the Experience of Longitudinal Research into Cultural Event Production in a Developing Destination

Longitudinal studies have the capacity to provide more nuanced explanations of tourism and event phenomena, taking account of complexity, change and context. This paper is a self-reflexive, methodological study of research practice. It investigates my experience of engaging with cultural event producers in an emerging destination over a seven-year period. Focussing on my research journey, it considers the social and relational dynamics associated with longitudinal research. Reciprocal relations and co-production of cultural events reveal nuanced information and expose fluid relationships and networks. Long-term engagement uncovers evolving practices and develops understanding of event processes embedded within their wider context.

The capacities of institutions for the integration of ecosystem services in coastal strategic planning: The case of Jiaozhou Bay

This paper explains how the practice of integrating ecosystem-service thinking (i.e., ecological benefits for human beings) and institutions (i.e., organisations, policy rules) is essential for coastal spatial planning. Adopting an integrated perspective on ecosystem services (ESs) both helps understand a wide range of possible services and, at the same time, attune institution to local resource patterns. The objective of this paper is to identify the extent to which ESs are integrated in a specific coastal strategic planning case. A subsequent objective is to understand whether institutions are capable of managing ESs in terms of uncovering institutional strengths and weaknesses that may exist in taking ESs into account in existing institutional practices. These two questions are addressed through the application of a content analysis method and a multi-level analysis framework on formal institutions. Jiaozhou Bay in China is used as an illustrative case. The results show that some ESs have been implicitly acknowledged, but by no means the whole range. This partial ES implementation could result from any of four institutional weaknesses in the strategic plans of Jiaozhou Bay, namely a dominant market oriented interest, fragmented institutional structures for managing ESs, limited ES assessment, and a lack of integrated reflection of the social value of ESs in decision-making. Finally, generalizations of multi-level institutional settings on ES integration, such as an inter-organisational fragmentation and a limited use of ES assessment in operation, are made together with other international case studies. Meanwhile, the comparison highlights the influences of extensive market-oriented incentives and governments' exclusive responsibilities on ES governance in the Chinese context.